1. In the 1950s South Korea was a country devastated by war. Per capita GDP
was a meager $300 a year and fewer than 50 companies had more than 200
employees. Those who spoke English had an incredibly lucrative skill. They could work for the U.S. military, for embassies, for foreign
companies, or as middlemen and get paid in foreign currency, making
enough money to help their extended families survive.
From this came the idea that you could be rich by speaking English in Korea.

3. Job hopping used to be common among native teachers, but that has
stopped. In the past, native teachers would move from school to school
as they gained experience, starting off at a school with long hours and
low pay, and ending up at universities where they taught as few as nine
hours a week, had no research requirements, and got paid as much as $3,000 dollars a month or more, although most taught more and made less.

4. Park broke a long-held taboo by delivering public speeches in English at
international events, when the previous presidents had always spoken
Korean. Unlike Ban Ki Moon’s English, Park’s English is fluent and easy
to understand. I remember being at Seoul Station, the capital’s main
railway station, as Koreans looked in awe at Park delivering a speech in
confident English at the World Economic Forum. By doing so, she broke
the myth that English was the language of the out-group, or that you had
to be humble when using the global language.